Thursday, October 15, 2009

"SIMPLY TOO BUSY...."

MEMO

TO: Our Loyal Readers

FROM: The "Just When You Think You've Seen It All" department

RE: A doozie of a query

DATE: Today

Breezing through email queries this morning--some good, some bad, one just right--when I received the following: "Please forgive this form letter, but I am simply too busy writing every literary agent in the publishing industry to take the time to inquire individually."

"Huh?" thought I. "Inquire individually? What the heck? Isn't that my name in the 'To' box? And she's 'too busy?' This is supposed to make me what? Pant for her prose? Pul-eeze!"

"Please furnish (she continues), under separate cover(Like an email under an email? Huh?) your contact information and submission requirements. Further, since I'm in communication with so many agents, please don't take this as a rejection of your abilities if I don't respond."

Now I'm really nervous! Will my "abilities" make the grade, cut the mustard, meet with her approval? What if I never hear from her again? How can I mingle in publishing circles, hold my head high or even continue writing this blog?

Comes the coup de grace: "As you know, this is a large and extremely active industry (really?)and I can only afford the time to correspond with those agents most closely aligned with my talent, genre and goals."

"Damn! I just don't think I fit the bill here, said I (quite gleefully)." DELETE.

So, what do ya'll think of this? Is this writer on the level, somewhat demented, but on the level? Or is someone out there playing a mild hoax?

Actually, after thinking about it a moment, I'd say it's rather clever. If she/he intended the "quirky query" to grab your attention, it did. But as it can be said, there's attention, and then there's negative attention!

I agree with Carrie. I think someone's a little too bitter about receiving more rejections than they can handle. It was cleverly done, and I did giggle, but what time they could've spent on doing something more productive with themselves...Ah, the world we live in.

About Us

We launched our literary agency in 2006. Kae was publicity director at Rodale before launching KT Public Relations in 1993. Jon, a corporate veteran and frustrated literati, joined the public relations business in 1995 after getting his Masters in library science.
So, here we are, running two parallel publishing-based businesses. It’s an exciting time—doing what we love and learning something new each day. Stay tuned. This is a work in progress and we invite your participation.